


i say the phrases that keep it all going

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (the question is who takes the bullet), M/M, Queer Characters, drive in shootouts, four people die in their best friend's arms, rebel w/o a cause, the cops pull a gun at the drive in
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-23 02:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10709847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: Archie’s holding him now, and if it didn’t hurt so bad maybe that could be last thing he ever felt.





	1. rebel without a cause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wayonwayout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayonwayout/gifts).



> this is a gift for wayonwayout - thank you for always being willing to talk to me about the queer possibilities of the riverdale rebel without a cause reference!! 
> 
> lbr the longer they go on aligning archie and jughead with rebel without a cause, dog day afternoon and tarantino without shooting anyone the more suspicious i get. so call this a worst case scenario. there's going to be four chapters. 
> 
> if you need a refresher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk1MJFwGMjI

 

_You are going to die_

_in your best friend’s arms._

_And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it,_

_it’s all you know._

_I say the phrases that keep it all going,_

_And everyone plays along._ ****

_Imagine:_

_Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it._

__You didn’t think you’d feel this way.__ ****

**_\- Richard Siken, "Planet of Love"_ **

 

_"Want my jacket? It's warm."_

**_\- James Dean, Rebel Without A Cause_ **

 

* * *

Gun goes off, Jughead dies.

And it’s funny, he thinks, no matter how many times you do it. It still hurts.

He hears Betty scream as he pulls his arm from her grasp, but in his head it’s Natalie Wood screaming and he’s sitting back among the projector reels, watching their movie - _his_ movie, flicker through the tiny window in the projection booth. 9pm on a school night, picking at salty blackened popcorn from the container on his knees. Wiping hot tears off his face with his knuckles and not knowing why he’s crying, because he’s seen this movie a dozen times, two dozen, three -

So he knows how this goes. Knows what comes next. Three dozen viewings and Jughead knows this movie like the back of his hand. Runs clutching the gun and waits for the inevitable. Waits for what he knows he's meant to do.

(She knew too, he thinks, with a tiny twinge of sadness - she knew where she fit in just as well as he did. The three musketeers. The Juggie and Betts detective agency. They all knew what roles they were playing, they all knew how the stories ended. Archie, the hero. Betty, the girl next door. And him -)

He’s wearing Archie’s jacket, and that just nails it. The boy who’s in love with his best friend doesn’t get to live. The boy who’s in love with his best friend takes the bullet.

So the gun goes off.

And in his head he sees Archie dive for him and miss and hit the ground, blue jeans and tanned arms and his white t-shirt riding up over his stomach. He doesn’t have to look because he knows. He knows how it goes. The golden boy dives and misses and he -

When the bullet enters him he doesn’t even feel it. Only a strange coldness, and sickly shock of truth: that this was the end, and that he should have seen it coming.

The world tips, and he thinks, Archie is on his knees now. He’ll get up and tell them about the bullets.

He lands with his head facing the row of cars. The red-blue of the police lights hit his eyes in slow motion. It hurts now. It hurts the way he knew it would. It hurts too much. His chest constricts and he vomits a solid rope of blood, thin as a snake. There’s blood on his arm. Blood on the jacket. Archie’s.

He’s always known this was how it ends. He’s always been the one who can’t keep his mouth shut. Who’s always known the worst question to ask.

“Jug,  _Juggie_.” There are tears all over Archie’s face, his voice panic-thick and raw. His face swims in and out of focus, becoming a blurred streak of freckles in the night air above him. The police lights spin lazily on, red, white, blue, red, white. And it hurts.  

It’s a sadness, a melancholy - the knowledge that he should have known all along how this was going to end, that he shouldn’t have ever dreamt it wouldn’t end in blood. Boys like him always ended in blood. The blood was on his head from the first day they hurled that word at him, the way the whisper of it clung to him like a second skin in the halls.

This is how boys who like boys die. This is how the weirdos die.

Fred will come, he thinks dizzily, Fred will have seen him go down and think it’s Archie, because of the coat. Right on time.

He knows the movie backward and forward. And then Fred will take Archie home.

Archie’s holding him now, and if it didn’t hurt so bad maybe that could be last thing he ever felt.

“ _No-_   _please-_ ” Archie’s voice comes to him from far away, as mangled and raw as if he had been screaming for hours. Each word seems to be an effort. He’s talking through sobs. “ _I love you_ -”

That was something you couldn’t put in the movies in 1955. He tries to savour it - tries to hold onto the three words but they’re already slipping like sand through his fingers and everything is going black around him - And hadn’t he always been told he was going nowhere? Only no one knew how fast.

It’s all happening too soon, there’s no time to organize his dying thought, to bring forward the hazy memories of their summers gone by - all these things have popped like soap bubbles and the only thing left is his movie’s drastic ending -

He catches a glimpse of Fred at the corner of his vision, holding Archie, and he wants Archie to be the last thing he ever sees but his eyes can no longer focus and everything is just a blur -

The ground below them is spinning. The police lights at last have gone out. All the lights seem to have gone out. He’s falling, but there’s no one to catch him.

 _Show’s over_ , he thinks. _Roll credits. Close down the drive in. It’s over, it’s done. It’s -_


	2. rebel without a cause, redux

Gun goes off, Archie dies. 

It shouldn’t have been. No one should have allowed him to move that fast. 

But he’d done it, small-town American hero that he was, up and running from the first flash of the gun in the policeman’s hand, throwing himself between the line of cops and the intended path of the bullet like it’s nothing more than catching a football across the fifty-yard line.

It catches him just under the R of his letterman. 

When it goes in, Jughead swears he can feel it. It feels like being stuck straight through with a knife. It’s the sharpest and the coldest and the most certain pain he’s ever felt, given that none of this was ever supposed to happen, that the gun had been trained on him and him alone, that they are operating outside script and out of time. That Archie had just pulled off a maneuver that was never supposed to succeed.  

The cop cars are lined up ahead of them, the Serpents lingering in silence behind them. The two of them caught in the crossfire. And it’s already too late. 

Jughead catches Archie as he goes down. His arms are as numb and as heavy as lead, yet it’s easy to do: the same movement he’s learned through intervening in years of fainting spells and slippery frozen sidewalks and rough and tumble pickup football games. He’s caught Archie inches from hitting the ground before, and maybe this can be another of those times, maybe Archie will shake himself off and get up and give him a thank you grin before racing off to make Reggie regret whatever prank had made him lose his footing. Maybe. 

He won’t and yet it feels like he could, holding his best friend half-up in the hot white of the police car headlights, Archie’s body still warm and ragged and alive against his chest, the torn fabric of his coat flapping around the dark crimson of the bullet hole. He holds Archie and feels somehow that he can hold him up forever, that maybe if he just stands there holding him off the ground, it’ll fix itself somehow, they can go back to the world where Jughead took the bullet wearing Archie’s coat and Archie just missed grabbing his ankle. 

He holds his best friend and feels nothing but their history, the years and years of childhood behind them, the great impossible weight of Archie’s presence in his life. He knows Archie’s body like the back of his hand. Knows every square inch: the weight of his back, the width of his arms, the warmth of his skin. Your best friend, the one you’d do anything for. 

The bullet meant for him is lodged in Archie’s chest, and everything is wrong. 

Archie is looking up at him. 

“Jug.” 

_ Don’t talk _ , he wants to say, but he can’t make the words come out. Archie’s skin is ghost-white, the freckles standing out against it like so many stars. Blood has sprayed up his neck from the bullet’s impact, strawberry red, staining the collar of his shirt.  _ That won’t come out _ , Jughead finds himself thinking. And then:  _ Archie will never wear it again.  _

“Jug.” Urgent, so urgent. His eyes are huge and wondering. As if the fate of everything relies on the answer. As if everything hasn’t already ended. “You’re okay?” 

“Yes,” breathes Jughead, voice trembling. And Archie relaxes as if that was all he needed to know. 

They’re on the ground now, Archie in his arms, neck exposed across the bloody stretch of denim on Jughead’s thigh, head tipped back like he’s looking at the stars. He looks every bit like a corpse, and yet he keeps talking, blood bubbling hot over Jughead’s fingers, eyes focused on a point somewhere far beyond the two of them, somewhere only Archie can see. 

“It’s not - your fault.” There’s blood on his lips now, red as his hair. Jughead tries to wipe it clean and only smears red across Archie’s chin, sticky and falsely bright. It reminds of the berries they used to pick in the woods outside Archie’s house, the ones they used to eat by the bowlful. 

“Jug, I-”

He thinks about the treehouse. The smell of their childhood bedsheets. Rain on the window. 

_ “I know,” _ he wants to say.  _ “I love you too.”  _

But he doesn’t get a chance. 

“Archie!” Fred, running, frantic, eons too late, each strike of his shoes on the pavement sending vibrations up through the ground into Jughead’s brain. “Archie!” Yelling as if Archie will hear him, as if he’ll sit up and laugh and say  _ hey, yeah, I’m here. Let’s go home.  _

_ It’s too late _ , Jughead thinks.  _ Your son’s dead. _

Fred falls on his knees so hard Jughead knows he’s skinned both of them. He sits back wordlessly, lets Archie be wrenched of his slack fingers, lets the swelling dullness behind his eyes rise up and blot out the rest of it. 

The world is fading now, turning to buzzing in his ears. Fred is holding Archie in his arms as if he might wake up at any moment, but it’s too late and Jughead knows it because he knows the light in Archie’s eyes and he’d seen it go out. 

The sky seems to collapse in on itself, the sun too bright, the horizon blurring to nothing. He hears nothing. He can feel blood beating in his lower lip.

Archie’s head lolls backward and Fred catches it with one hand, tangles his fingers into a fistful of Archie’s hair and holds. He presses Archie into his neck and makes a noise Jughead never wants to hear again, like he’s in the most massive amount of pain a person can ever be in. 

Golden boy takes bullet for less deserving best friend. Not the movie he thought he was watching. Not the way it was supposed to happen. 

And yet it doesn’t make sense. It can’t be possible that Archie was gone, because that would mean he was gone forever, that their fifteen years together was worth nothing. It would mean that he’d never hear him laugh again, or even just turn to him and say the simplest of words:  _ hey _ or  _ hi  _ or  _ what’s up. _ They’d never walk to school together or sit on the back porch with comic books. It was no kind of movie when the hero died. Jughead was disposable. Archie - never. 

He feels himself start to collapse, hits the ground elbows first and then face-plants onto the asphalt because he has no reason to keep himself up anymore. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong. He’d said all the wrong things. If he could do it over he’d do it again, but it was all - 

_ Over. _ It was over. 

Roll credits. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "he was pointing at the moon but i was looking at his hand" richard siken


	3. tougher than the rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cute how i wrote this weeks before the finale... it ends so abruptly bc i was saving it to pair with a final chapter where fp was shot but... i mean you might as well have it now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cute how i wrote this weeks before the finale... it ends so abruptly bc i was saving it to pair with a final chapter where fp was shot but... i mean you might as well have it now. its totally unedited and shitty, i was gonna go back and make it better but . .. .i mean... it is what it is

Gun goes off, Fred dies.

And in retrospect, how could it have been anyone else? Not when Archie was involved. Not when Archie could be hurt. 

Same scene, same blocking. Jughead panics, runs, clutching the gun. Archie moves, quick as lightning, to get there first. And Fred, five feet behind them, hears the shot go out and  _ yells _ \- 

_ “ARCHIE, NO!”  _

Fred’s already running. Fred’s dad bellow has the authority to bring armies to their knees, and Jughead freezes on instinct. But Archie doesn’t stop. 

So Fred runs. It’s so simple, in retrospect. First rule of detective work: The most likely outcome is always true. 

Jughead doesn’t see it hit. For a moment after the shot rings out he thinks it’s missed them. The blast of the gun is so strong that he squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them they’re all still standing. 

And he thinks, foolishly,  _ we made it.  _

Thinks, foolishly,  _ we’re fine.  _

He breathes, the simple act of letting out the air in his lungs seeming to take an eternity. His hands are shaking but he’s unharmed, he regrets running all at once in a rush, Archie is still standing five feet ahead of him and Fred- 

Fred has one hand pressed to the centre of his chest. 

For a long, long while they look at each other. And he knows. Knows without even seeing the blood. Knows because he can read fear, cold and real, in Fred’s face for the first time since he’s ever known him. Knows because Fred doesn’t break his gaze, even when Archie speaks behind them. 

“Dad?” 

He doesn’t believe it yet. Because it can’t be real. Not if there’s any logic to the universe, not if the world values anything even resembling justice. But they stand looking at each other, and he feels a dull kind of shock take over his chest, a whole spreading wrongness in his lungs that paralyzes his breathing all over again and he knows it’s gone wrong. 

The three of them are separated by only a few short lengths of grass in front of the movie screen, Jughead closer to Fred than to Archie. In front of them, the police lights circle in an even row. But no one moves. Maybe no one knows yet, except him and Fred. 

“Dad?” calls Archie again, hesitant, confused, but unafraid. Jughead envies him, all at once and horribly, for the rapidly vanishing time in which Archie stands there and still doesn’t know. And he knows just as suddenly, as Fred holds his gaze without breaking, that Fred isn’t afraid of dying, but afraid of the moment he has to look away, afraid of the moment Archie realizes the bullet hadn’t missed. 

“Dad?” Archie again. More demanding now. Still uncertain. Knowing without knowing that something was wrong. 

Jughead wants to look at him, but he can’t tear his eyes from Fred, who’s still standing. Time seems to have slowed to a crawl. For a moment he thinks Fred will go on standing there forever, one hand pressed just below his sternum, blood running through his fingers, entirely unmoving, with the same look of terror and sadness in his face. 

“DAD!” 

And, _ fuck _ , this was all wrong, it should have been him, it should have been  _ him _ , it should be the two of them, together, over  _ his _ corpse. And it’s his fault because he had run, and Archie had run after him, and Fred-  

_ falls.  _

He has no memory of closing the small gap between himself and Fred Andrews, of trying with everything he can as a fifteen-year-old behind a grown man to hold him upright, to ease him to the ground. He doesn’t envy Archie anymore. Not for a second.  _ “Jughead,” _ gasps Fred, and grabs at one of his arms, and he knows it’s with the hand that used to be pressed against the bullet wound because his forearm is suddenly slick and coated with dark blood. 

Fred goes down hard onto his knees. Jughead can feel his back trembling with the effort of breathing. He knows if he can only press both hands hard over the wound there’s a chance, but he can’t make himself move and he knows equally that the chance is gone, that the bullet hit something too crucial inside him, that there’s too much blood now to stop it. 

Archie runs into his dad’s arms, throws himself against him, hands all over his front, trying to staunch the bleeding, whispering  _ no no no no no _ like it’ll change anything and Fred only holds him and that’s how Jughead knows it’s over. Knows for certain. 

“Dad-” and Archie’s sobbing now, “you can’t, you can’t you can’t, please, you can’t-” 

There are spots in front of Jughead’s vision, his eyes can’t focus and his head is so hot that he can taste sweat in his mouth and he knows he’s fainting and tries to dig his nails into his palms but he can’t make his hands curl- 

“Jughead -” Archie’s voice is high, hysterical, garbled by the ringing in his ears. “Help me, please-” 

There’s blood. There’s too much blood. 

“No,” Archie keeps saying, his voice broken, repeating the one syllable over and over as if it will change things. “No, no, no.” 

Jughead runs. 

He runs and collapses and the dirt comes rushing up to meet his palms, and through the waves crashing against the inside of his skull his only thought is that it’s all wrong, that it needs to stop, that it shouldn’t have been this way and if _only_ \- if _only_ it had been him, or his father, or _anyone, anything_ but this, if - 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im crying laughing @ my original chapter summary for this "Anyone who knows me knows i am the biggest fred stan of all time and love him more than life itself. So…. become the thing you fear most i guess? " you guys are witnessing the end of my life right nwo hoyl shit


End file.
